President Bush, you did real good Wednesday. You get a ‘compassionate conservative” high-five by signing the bipartisan-approved Second Chance Act.

There is always the devil in the details behind most legislation, such as funding cost-effective, successful programs independent of political or special-interest lobbying bias or influence.

But you da man for now. This is not soft on crime. This is not coddling criminals. This is not an affront to crime victims. This is just smart thinking that could improve public safety in the long run.

The bill officially acknowledges, on an unprecedented national level, the formidable housing, employment and other challenges faced by ex-offenders released from prison or local custody. The federal legislation provides funds to help local and state re-entry efforts throughout the nation.

“The country was built on the belief that each human being has limitless potential and worth,” Bush said before signing the bill into law. “Everybody matters. We believe that even those who have struggled with a dark past can find brighter days ahead. One way we act on that belief is by helping former prisoners who’ve paid for their crimes — we help them build new lives as productive members of our society.”

The signing will no doubt encourage or push many states to follow suit.

Minnesota is weighing similar legislation. One proposed provision in the state Senate version will grant law-abiding, employable ex-offenders a state-sanctioned “certificate” that may improve their chances to land a job or a roof over their heads.

Andre Corbett, 27, of Minneapolis, knows what that is like after serving more than five years in state prison on an aggravated robbery conviction. Corbett now is what Bush described Wednesday as one of the “members of the armies of compassion.”

Before he was a member, however, he was a recipient and embodied the bill’s intent as much as anyone.

A Dayton, Ohio, native, Corbett relocated with his single mother and an older brother to Minneapolis when he was 13. Two years later, because of problems at home, both he and his brother “emancipated” themselves.

His brother quickly embraced street life and its perils. Corbett juggled high school with a job as a crew-training chief for a local McDonald’s while living in a subsidized apartment for homeless teens.

Things were going well until his high school in St. Paul told him he would not graduate because he had accumulated 15 absences, most of them because of his job duties. It did not matter that he was getting mostly A’s, B’s and C’s in class. He became disillusioned. School policy ruled. He dropped out his junior year.

Corbett gravitated to hanging around with gangster types, selling drugs and “smoking weed,” he recalls. He had no family or peer support.

Then, he enrolled in an alternative school and got his degree by making up two years of schoolwork in eight months.

But he succumbed once again to street life and a circle of friends that brought him down. He got popped for robbery of a store at the Mall of America and also was charged — wrongfully, he says — with two other holdups at the mall months earlier.

He took up vocational programs while in lock-up and landed a job with the Twin Cities Rise! social service agency following his release.

He landed a job as an employment readiness consultant seven months ago with a Goodwill/Easter Seals’ 18-month job and training pilot program designed for ex-offenders released from prison within 90 days.

“There are other fields of training, but these industries have been more open than others to accept workers with criminal records,” said Rob Hope, the program’s coordinator. More than 232 ex-offenders have gone through the program and found employment in the past 18 months.

One former client is Derrick Lawrence, 32, of Minneapolis, who spent seven years in prison on an assault conviction. A former gangbanger and drug dealer, Lawrence has been steadily employed for the past year as a forklift and equipment maintenance technician for a New Brighton firm. It’s his first legitimate job.

At the height of his street-life business, he was making an estimated $100,000 pushing heroin.

Lawrence doesn’t dwell much on the vast money discrepancy.

“Look, I made 12 cents an hour in prison (sewing T-shirts and other clothing),” Lawrence said. “I’m making about $10 an hour now, but I don’t have to look over my shoulder. And I filed taxes as a free man for the first time this year.”

Corbett knows the feeling.

“I would have to say that most men who come through our program really deep down want to do the right thing,” he said. “But they get rejected over and over again. No one wants to hire them or give them a place to live. They go back to the old ways and the cycle starts again.”

Corbett teaches not only how to land a job but also how to develop the required work habits: get to work on time, follow orders from a boss, have a positive attitude and suck up things that you may not like about what you are being told to do.

Corbett recalls speaking a few weeks ago at the state Capitol during a rally attended by more than 500 people.

“I offered a formal apology for helping to destroy our own communities,” said Corbett, who is months away from obtaining an associate’s degree in business from a local community college.

“I want to help break down the public perception of who we are,” he said. “If I was not offered a decent, fair opportunity to right myself, I think I would be back on the streets destroying my community again. Believe me, most guys do want to do the right thing when they get out.

“But if they don’t have the support or the right people in their corner, it’s easier for them to give up.”

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